One of the most disheartening things about my experience of the negotiations so far is that there is no sense of urgency. Despite the fact that we are close to tipping points that may commit us to dangerous climate change, trivial issues still dominate much of the discussion here.

I forgot to post about this issue yesterday, but I have another excuse to blog on it today thanks to the Fossil of the Day award (definitely check out the awesome website). Fossil of the Day is the anti-award given daily to the countries who are the worst of the worst when it comes to obstructing or contributing negatively to the negotiations.

Japan almost came away with a hat trick, and was awarded both first and second place Fossil of the Day. Their first place finish was for an attempt to weaken their domestic emission reductions goals, but the second place win (loss) is what I'd like to talk about.

Japan proposed that solving climate change will require "lifestyle innovation." Surely, our behaviour and lifestyles will need to change to achieve the deep reductions in emissions that we need to see to avoid dangerous climate change - but changing a light bulb won't solve all our problems. We need both "lifestyle innovation" and a strong international commitment to aggressive and ambitious greenhouse gas targets if we hope to realize climate security in the future.

Japan's suggestion normally wouldn't be so bad, except that the Japanese representative's suggestion was that individuals should limit showers to 20 minutes. To do his own part, the representative pledged to reduce his weekend baths from seven or eight to a mere three.

I probably don't need to explain why this is ridiculous, or why I think discussions like these are both absurd and depressing. As we near the point of no return on climate change because of positive feedbacks that could amplify the effects of climate change, major countries are talking about reducing the number of baths we take on the weekend to three. We are fiddling while Rome burns.

There is no sense of urgency here, yet. Maybe that will come with the high-level ministerial meetings in the next week, but I am not optimistic. There's still hope, however: no matter what comes out of Poznan, we have new leadership in the United States, and potentially new leadership in Canada in the coming weeks. Two of the world's biggest climate laggards my finally get on board the train to mitigation-town. Even though the 15th Conference of Parties in Copenhagen - and expectations for a post-2012 climate agreement - is only one year away, there may still be a chance that we can achieve something incredible.

All we need is a sense of urgency.